We tell a different story

I am 29 years old from Bethlehem. I grew up in a simple family with a few members. I remember a certain event, when I was thirteen, which had an effect on my soul.

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That evening, there was an invasion called the "forty-day invasion." Israeli forces began to break into homes at different times but continuously. House after house.

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The force burst into our home. They asked all the men to leave the house during the search. At that moment I was seized by fear and concern for my father, my brothers and my uncles, fearing the soldiers would take them. They took all the young people out of their homes; put them against the wall, in the sun, for long hours. They took their ID cards and humiliated them. After long hours of standing in the blazing sun, they were released.

I was very frightened.

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In another incident, my brother, who went out to the university in the morning, was arrested along with the passengers of the taxi on Hebron Road by young soldiers. They asked him to get out of the taxi and as soon as they got off they told the taxi driver to continue on his way. The driver asked to wait until they finished talking to my brother, but they refused in a firm tone. They searched my brother's suitcase. He asked them to let him go, but they refused and began to beat him with the butt of the rifle on his back and hands, threw him on the ground and continued beating his legs and stomach. He tried to resist but every blow was more violent than the other.

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Finally, they left. With great difficulty, my brother reached the main road, where a car took him to the hospital.

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And I am asking - Why?! What did he do? A young man who goes to a university that never made problems, why would they humiliate him like that?! Because he is a Palestinian? Or because there was so much hatred in this group of soldiers that they had to get it out on him?!

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This is the reality of many of the Palestinian people. They are tortured and imprisoned for no reason other than being Palestinians without land and homeland.